Europe's top human rights official has urged the Kremlin to end a wave of abductions in North Caucasus and to prosecute the killers of a prominent rights activist.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, said after a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he raised the issue of abductions and forced disappearances of people in Chechnya and other regions of Russia's North Caucasus.

Hammarberg was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that he also emphasized the need to solve the murder of rights activist Natalya Estemirova, who was killed in July in Ingushetia.

The Council of Europe is the continent's top human rights body. Compiled from agency reports